Public challenge of physician authority, an increasingly common phenomenon in doctor-patient relationships, is conceptualized as a form of consumerism in medicine, and studied for its effect on utilization behavior, categorized by reason for health service and type of facility used. Measures of challenge to physician authority, developed in prior sociological research of the investigators (HRA 1-R01-HS-0849-02) and analyzed as dependent variables in terms of prior demographic and social psychological factors include indices on Patient Rights and Questioning M.D. Authority. These indices will be used in the current study as independent variables to determine their explanatory power with respect to utilization of physician services, differentiated by seriousness of presenting complaint. Data have been collected through participation in an amalgam national survey (NORC) and are now being analyzed. Medical consumerism, it is suggested, may serve as an important control on health care utilization, reducing possible tendencies to flood the system with "trivial problems" in the event that the introduction of national health insurance eliminates or reduces economic barriers to care.